The Criterion Collection

Election

Edition no. 904

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Release Date: Tuesday, 12 December 2017
Country of Release: USA
MSRP: $39.95

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Licensor Information

Paramount Home Entertainment

Directed by: Alexander Payne

Featuring: Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Klein, Jessica Campbell, Mark Harelik, Phil Reeves, Molly Hagan, Delaney Driscoll, Colleen Camp, Frankie Ingrassia, Matt Malloy, Jeanine Jackson, Holmes Osborne

Perky, overachieving Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) gets on the nerves of history teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) to begin with, but after she launches her campaign for high-school president and his personal life starts to fall apart, things spiral out of control. In Alexander Payne’s satire Election, the teacher becomes unhealthily obsessed with cutting his student down to size, covertly backing a spoiler candidate to stop her from steamrolling to victory, and putting in motion a series of dirty tricks and reckless promises with uncanny real-world political parallels. Adapting a then-unpublished novel by Tom Perrotta, Payne grounds the absurdity of his central dynamic in the recognizable—the setting is his hometown of Omaha, and the accomplished cast is rounded out with nonprofessionals—and distills his closely observed take on deeply flawed humanity to its bitter but stealthily sympathetic essence.

Year: 1999
Time: 103 min.

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Last 7 Days

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Last 30 Days

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Release Information:

Technical Specifications

Format:

Blu-ray

Disc:

BD-50 (1 Disc)

Total: 1 Disc

Regions:

A (Blu-ray)

Aspect Ratio:

2.40:1

Audio Options:

English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1

Subtitles:

English

Supplements

Types of Supplements Included: Audio Commentary, Interview, Short Film, Documentary, Archival Footage, Insert

Audio commentary from 1999 featuring Alexander Payne
New interview with Alexander Payne
New interview with actor Reese Witherspoon
The Passion of Martin, Payne’s 1991 UCLA senior thesis film
TruInside: “Election,” a 2016 documentary featuring on-set footage and interviews with cast and crew
Omaha local-news reports on the film’s production
An essay by critic Dana Stevens

Forum Member Statistics

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Film

9.0000/10

Picture

9.0000/10

Audio

7.5000/10

Supplements

8.0000/10

Artwork

5.3333/10